Saudi who flew to Turkey on day Khashoggi disappeared ‘dies in crash’

One of 15 Saudis who flew to Turkey when Jamal Khashoggi vanished ‘dies in car crash’ – as CCTV ‘shows member of Crown Prince’s entourage’ entering embassy hours before disappearance

Jamal Khashoggi disappeared on October 2 after walking into Saudi consulate

A group of 15 Saudis flew into Turkey on the day the journalist went missing

One, Meshal Saad M. Albostani, has now ‘died in a car crash’, it has been claimed

CCTV purportedly shows another of the 15 men entering the Istanbul embassy

By

Julian Robinson for MailOnline

and
Reuters

Published:
09:53 BST, 18 October 2018

| Updated:
11:21 BST, 18 October 2018

One of the 15 Saudis who flew to Turkey on the day journalist Jamal Khashoggi disappeared has been killed in a car crash, it has been claimed.

Meshal Saad M. Albostani has been named among a group of men wanted for questioning after Khashoggi went missing having entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul two weeks ago.

It has now been reported that Albostani, a lieutenant of the Saudi Royal Air Force, has died in a ‘suspicious traffic accident’ in the capital Riyadh.

Turkish pro-government Yeni Safak, which carried the report, is the same newspaper that published what it said were details from audio recordings purportedly documenting Khashoggi’s torture and interrogation at the Consulate building.

But Turkey has yet to share with the U.S. government or key European allies any graphic audio or video evidence it allegedly collected on the US-based Saudi journalist’s visit to the embassy.

Meanwhile, CCTV images have emerged purportedly showing another of the 15 Saudis, Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, entering the consulate building at 9.55am on the day the writer vanished having entered the building at 1.14pm the same day.

Meshal Saad M. Albostani (left), one of the 15 Saudis who flew to Turkey on the day journalist Jamal Khashoggi (right), disappeared has been killed in a car crash, it has been claimed

Jamal Khashoggi (right) arriving at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul on October 2. He has not been seen since and Turkey has accused Saudi agents of murdering him

CCTV images have emerged purportedly showing another of the 15 suspects, Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, entering the consulate building at 9.55am (pictured) hours before the writer entered the same building in Istanbul

Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, reportedly now being sought by Turkish authorities for questioning over Khashoggi’s disappearance, can be seen in the background as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visits a Habitat for Humanity in Houston, Texas in April

Yeni Safak reported that there was little more detail about the car crash that supposedly left Albostani dead.

Last week, Turkish newspaper Sabah released CCTV images of Albostani among a group of men who flew into Istanbul on the day Khashoggi went missing. They were pictured arriving at Ataturk airport’s border control having flown into Turkey in two private jets from the Saudi capital Riyadh.

Meanwhile, a Saudi team investigating the disappearance has left the Saudi consul general’s residence in Istanbul, a Reuters witness said early on Thursday.

A group of Turkish police crime scene investigators had left the consul general’s residence earlier on Thursday after an almost nine-hour search at the premises.

Turkish investigators had also searched the Saudi consulate for some nine hours on Monday as part of the investigation.

Two weeks after the disappearance on October 2, the United States and allies have collected some intelligence through their own sources and methods, which partly confirms news reports based on leaks of audio recordings, four sources told Reuters.

CCTV images printed by the Sabah newspaper show Mutreb in Turkey on the day of the journalist’s disappearance

According to Sabah, this CCTV iamge shows Mutreb ‘and his people’ with a large suitcase at a hotel in Turkey

A frame grab from a police CCTV video made available through Turkish Newspaper Sabah shows a private jet alleged to have ferried in a group of Saudi men suspected of being involved in Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance

Missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi, pictured in Switzerland in 2011, may have been murdered because he knew too much about the Saudi royal family, one of his friends has said

This morning, images emerged in another pro-government Turkish newspaper purporting to show a man who previously travelled with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s entourage to the US entering the Saudi Consulate just before Khashoggi vanished.

The Sabah newspaper’s report showed the man, named as Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, also later outside the Saudi consul general’s home, checking out of a Turkish hotel as a large suitcase stood by his side, and leaving Turkey on October 2.

The Sabah report showed the man walking past police barricades at the consulate at 9.55am with several men trailing behind him. Khashoggi arrived at the consulate several hours later at 1.14pm, then disappeared while his fiancée waited outside for him.

Previously leaked surveillance footage showed consular vehicles moving from the consulate to the consul general’s official residence, some 1.2 miles away, a little under two hours after Khashoggi walked inside. The Sabah newspaper showed an image of the man at 4.53 pm at the consul’s home, then at 515pm checking out of a hotel. He later cleared airport security at 5.58pm.

Images shot by the Houston Chronicle and later distributed by the AP show the same man was in Prince Mohammed’s entourage when he visited a Houston subdivision in April to see rebuilding efforts after Hurricane Harvey. The same man wore lapel pins, including one of the flags of Saudi Arabia and America intertwined, that other bodyguards accompanying Prince Mohammed wore on the trip.

The three-week trip across the U.S. saw Prince Mohammed meet with business leaders and celebrities, including Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, who now owns the Post.

Yeni Safak had reported that Khashoggi’s alleged torturers severed Khashoggi’s fingers during an interrogation, and that he was killed within minutes. According to the report, his body was later beheaded and dismembered by his killers.

A New York Times report on Wednesday cited a senior Turkish official confirming the details published by Yeni Safak. Two Turkish government officials contacted by Reuters declined to confirm the report.

Turkish sources told Reuters earlier this week that the authorities have an audio recording indicating that Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate and that they were sharing it with countries including Saudi Arabia and the United States.

The reluctance of the Turks to turn over hard evidence they have said they have documenting Khashoggi’s fate has led U.S. and European security officials to assess that the most brutal accounts of Khashoggi’s demise are likely accurate, the sources said.

U.S. President Donald Trump appeared to confirm the lack of evidence in U.S. hands when he said on Wednesday that the United States had asked Turkey for any audio or video evidence it may have related to Khashoggi.

‘We have asked for it, if it exists … I’m not sure yet that it exists, probably does, possibly does,’ Trump said.

Horrifying: Journalist Jamal Khashoggi was thrown onto a desk and dismembered by a Saudi ‘hit squad’ while he was still alive, according to an anonymous source

‘I’ll have a full report on that from Mike (Pompeo) when he comes back … That’s going to be the first question I ask,’ he said.

Khashoggi, a prominent critic of Saudi policies and columnist for the Washington Post who was living in the United States, vanished after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 to get marriage documents.

Pompeo, the U.S. secretary of state, is due to return on Wednesday from a trip to Saudi Arabia and Turkey, where he met with leaders to discuss reports that Khashoggi was killed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Pompeo has said Riyadh should be given a few more days to complete an investigation into the disappearance of the journalist, a prominent critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Asked aboard his airplane whether he had heard any audio of Khashoggi’s capture, Pompeo declined to comment, but his spokeswoman later told reporters he had not.

The Saudis have strongly denied those allegations but U.S. media outlets have reported that they will acknowledge he was killed in a botched interrogation.